Bat Conservation Group Pushes for Better Protection

Bat Conservation Group Pushes for Better Protection for
Endangered Native Bat Species

A group of bat
conservationists are banding together to save New
Zealand’s endangered native bat species. Recently, bat
ecologists and educators from all over the country came
together at the 5th New Zealand Bat Conference in Taranaki,
to discuss the management of bat populations nationwide. The
consensus was that further measures are needed to ensure the
protection of both species of native bat, the short-tailed
bat and the long-tailed bat, from the risk of
extinction.

On Friday, the Department of Conservation
(DOC) announced that in the North Island the long-tailed bat
is now considered critically endangered, which reveals a
major decline in numbers from its 2012 status as
‘vulnerable’. This means that long-tailed bats are more
prone to extinction than kiwi, kokako and whio. This has
prompted the group to put pressure on the government to
increase measures to protect bats. On Wednesday the group
sent a letter to relevant ministers in a call to action for
better resourcing and direction on bat policies.

While the
recent announcement from DOC also revealed good news that
the southern short-tailed bat is now ‘recovering’, where
previously it was ‘threatened’, bat ecologists are quick
to point out that this success is due to sustained and
intensive predator control in an intact forest habitat, as
the short-tailed bat is still declining in less well managed
parts of the country.

The main current threats to bats
include predation by stoats, rats, possums and cats and
habitat clearance, in particular the loss of old and large
trees that the bats require to make their roosts. Bats
require a number of different habitats within a large range
(up to 50 km) that include waterways, gullies, native forest
remnants with large forest tracts, and plantation forestry.
With pest control and protection of their habitats, our only
native land mammals have the potential to recover.

In the
North Island, many long-tailed bat populations can be found
in the rural landscape, including plantation forestry.
Without careful management of tree felling and protection of
key bat roosting and feeding areas their habitat will
disappear, and bats will be injured or killed during
felling. Educating land owners with bats roosting on their
property should also be a priority, as many people have
negative opinions about bats and may not wish to protect
them. Additionally, on the margins of towns and cities,
urban expansion is encroaching on bat habitat and it is
likely that bats will also disappear from these areas unless
measures are put in place to protect them.

Current
measures such as establishing a ‘bat box’ (a wooden
structure that is put up high in trees to encourage bats to
roost in) to mitigate the felling of potential bat roost
trees may not be sufficient to replace lost roosting
habitat. Bats are very slow to take up home in bat boxes,
and they often do not provide the ideal humidity,
temperature and space that large, old trees can offer
them.

The letter suggests that the ministers work with bat
practitioners to consider updates or changes to current
legislation to enhance the protection of bats, and to work
with community and industry stakeholders to develop
guidelines and education tools. Other proposed options for
halting the decline of bat populations included specific
policy and regulation to protect and enhance bat habitats in
District Plans, Regional Plans and Regional Policy
Statements.

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